One year ago, catastrophic wildfires devastated communities in southern Oregon, including the rural towns of Talent and Phoenix. The fires destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, raced ahead of people trying to escape in their cars, and killed eleven people. Much of the devastation occurred in the district of state Senator Jeff Golden, Chair of the Oregon Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire Recovery. Senator Golden is a rare political animal: a progressive Democrat and environmental champion in a rural, conservative district and a thoughtful, respectful politician who refuses to vilify his opponents.

 

In this episode of the Mother Earth Podcast we sit down with Senator Golden for an in-depth discussion on the politics of the climate crisis, the wildfires that literally hit close to home for him, and the important climate legislation in Oregon that serves as a national model for progress.  We get an inside look at the immense challenges he and his colleagues have faced in enacting environmental legislation, including repeated Republican walkouts in 2019 and 2020 that deprived the legislature of a quorum and were used to block climate legislation, even as the state literally burned. Senator Golden joined us for two interviews that make up this episode: first in October 2020 just after the disastrous wildfires tore through his district, and again in August, 2021. The timing of these conversations turned out to be perfect. In the first conversation we hear about why a state cap and trade bill failed while in our recent conversation we learn of the success of a very different kind of climate bill in 2021 that is one of the most far-reaching climate bills on the electricity sector in the nation. We hear not only about the brutal devastation of the 2020 wildfires but also about the successful legislation Senator Golden sponsored in 2021 to reduce the dangers of future fires. We discuss Oregon’s status as one of the few states with no campaign finance limits in the first interview and, in the second, learn about a ballot measure in which the voters took control and authorized campaign finance reform.

 

Senator Golden’s experience in Oregon offers vitally important lessons for the national efforts to deal with the climate crisis.  Despite the difficulty of working in politics in a time where extremism and misleading news are rampant, Senator Golden remains diligent in his commitment to protect the land and the people of his beloved state of Oregon  And he offers us nuggets of wisdom from his lifetime as a journalist, logger, carpenter, activist and, now, political leader. Join us this week to hear an authentic, progressive voice of the rural American West.